This no very flattering account of our late host made my father determine not to pay him another visit, if he could help it, on our return. "I'll follow your example and keep out of his way," observed my father, "though I should have been glad to make another attempt to purchase his slave Dio, for the sake of getting the brave fellow out of his power." "The more desirous you appear to obtain the slave the less likely will he be to part with him, so I would advise you not to allude again to the subject," said my uncle. "I'll keep an eye on his proceedings, and, should he at any time suffer losses and be obliged to sell up, I'll take means to buy Dio, not letting his master know that you want to become his owner." With this arrangement my father was obliged to rest satisfied, as he saw that there was no other chance of getting Dio out of the power of his tyrannical master. A few days after this conversation Uncle Denis was so far recovered, that my father announced his intention of returning home. "Stay a few days longer; don't think of going yet," answered Uncle Denis; "it seems but yesterday that you came, and I shall feel more lonely than ever when you are gone; besides, you haven't seen the great wonder of our part of the country, nor have I forsooth, and I should like to pay it a visit with you." "Of what wonder do you speak?" asked my father. "Sure, of the big caves we have deep down in the earth, a few miles only from this. It is said there are mountains, rivers and lakes within them, and I don't know what besides." "Oceans, forests, and valleys, perhaps," said my father, laughing, and scarcely crediting the account my uncle gave him; for at that time the wonderful Mammoth Caves of Kentucky were unknown to the world in general, although the native Indians might have been acquainted with them, and some time before, a mine of saltpetre at the entrance had been discovered. My mother, more to please Uncle Denis than from any expected pleasure to herself; agreed to accompany him, and to my great delight, they promised to take me. We were to perform the trip in two or three days, and Uncle Denis said that in the meantime he would try and find means of amusing us. We went all over the farm, on which he grew tobacco, maize, and other cereals. He was a great sportsman, besides which he had a fancy for trapping birds and animals, and taming them, when he could. In this he was wonderfully successful; he had a large menagerie of the feathered tribe as well as numbers of four-footed beasts which he had trapped and contrived to domesticate. His ambition was to tame a panther, a bear, and a wolf; but as yet he had not succeeded in taking any of them young enough, as he said, to be taught good manners. "Perhaps if you had a lady to help you, you would be more successful," observed my mother, "like Orpheus of old, who charmed the savage beasts. She would with her voice produce a greater effect on their wild natures than any man can do."